Liberty Quarry - For Realtors a Private Property Rights Issue?

I
don't personally care if you're for or against the Liberty Quarry Project proposed
for the foothills southwest of Temecula. All I ask is before you engage
me in a discussion, please have some facts at your disposal. I
get
real tired of emotional arguments proferred as facts, out-and-out lies
and mis-statements masquerading as the truth, and NIMBY and
environmental whack-jobs trying to sway me to their cause by increasing
the volume of their rhetoric. Simply yelling BS loudly does not make it
a fact - it merely makes it loud BS.

OK.
Now that we're clear on the ground rules, the Southwest
Riverside County Association of Realtors has been
evaluating the Granite
Construction project at Liberty Quarry.
This is a major project that may be a neighbor to our community for the
next 75 or 80 years. To that end, we have had a presentation by members
of the anti-quarry group
Save our Southwest Hills
and yesterday 4 members of our Board took a tour of Granite
Construction's Indio Quarry and then trekked into the southwest hills
to look over the proposed Liberty site.

The
BOD has not made a decision on whether or not to support the quarry
proposal itself. There are numerous facts in evidence tojustify support
as well as some negative concerns. But I suspect that based on our
criteria, the issue will be adjudged 'not
real estate related'.
Though the foundational use of aggregate underlies real estate in
Southwest County, our homes, businesses and infrastructure, the
subjective issue of quarry location is not in itself a Realtor issue.
You can make up your own mind as to need & location but I
encourage
you to get ALL the facts before making that decision.

What
is an issue for us, however, is a private property
rights issue concernoing the proposed annexation by the
City of Temecula of the land on
which the quarry would be sited. That issue is fairly simple.

There is a Seller
(or Sellers) who are willing to sell their land

There is a Buyer
(Granite Construction) ready, willing and able to buy the land

The land
is zoned 'rr20 w/mining allowed' as it's highest and best
use. The zoning
is appropriate for the intended use by Granite
Construction.That
zoning pre-dates the existence of the City of Temecula and recognizes
the critical role that mining plays in our economic structure.

We
are looking into the property rights aspect of this issue by trying to
make sense of the documents that all parties have/or will submit to
LAFCO prior to their June 4 hearing on annexation. In addition to concerns of
a taking - and - downzoning by the City, there are also concerns with
the letter of the annexation law. For a city to annex land (remember
Temecula/Redhawk & Murrieta/East
Murrieta), they must be able to prove that the acquisition will be
productive - in other words, you can't just acquire something that will
put a negative drain on city resources - there must be some common
good.

The City states that
their annexation plans are valid and justified and would not result in
an appreciable change to the underlying zoning, it would merely provide
the element of local control on the land. And in part, the city may
have used some sketchy numbers to pad up the numbers in the report by
including plans for the construction
of 81 custom homes on part of the land. Now if you've seen the area you
know that the area:

is simply not
conducive to residential/estate development due
to the steep rocky nature of the land, lack of access and utilities. If
it was that damned easy and attractive, the current landowners would
have built there years ago.

the City claims they will have no
responsibility for infrastructure or development in the area. If
residents want to build here, they are responsible to bring in their
own utilities, roads, power, etc. It's not too surprising that many of
the current landowners are all in favor of this project.
Let's see - on the one hand we can keep this worthles pile of gravel we
bought that we could never afford to build on - on the other hand we
can sell to this big company for a tidy sum. Hmmmm, tough call, eh? The
City offers one further scenario - they maybe can sell it to a wildlife
preserve for probably a less tidy sum.

will NEVER
pay for itself
because residential property is a drain on city resources, not a
benefit. In a nutshell that's why the City of Temecula is in better
fiscal condition that Murrieta - because they have a larger commercial
base whereas Murrieta is primarily relying on a residential base. But
in this case they seem to be playing against type.

You
should also know that 85% of
the area is already zoned for habitat and open space. Granite
Construction is planning to buy about 400 acres and, in
compliance with county, state & federal mandates, their quarry
will
be confined to just 150 of those acres - none within line of site of
any area of Temecula, the I-15 or much of anywhere other than aircraft.

Again, you can choose to
believe or disbelieve facts pertaining to air
quality, silica dust, asphalt production, traffic reductions, the cost
of aggregate to our local market or any of the myriad of pertinent
issues. I encourage you to visit some of the websites on
the
issue to get your own facts and make your own informed decision as to
the quarry itself.

However, if someone
tells you it will be the largest
open put mine in the country, that it will produce toxic clouds of silica dust and asphalt
particulates floating over our community, that it will encroach on either the wildlife preserve, wildlife corridor or
the Santa Margarita river watershed, that it will increase truck traffic or
that we simply don't need or
would not benefit from local access to aggregate products,
they're
dissembling.

Please plan to attend
the Granite Construction presentation at our Tuesday morning
marketing meeting on April 21st and bring your questions
for the Q & A. And our special guests on 4/28 will be
Temecula Mayor Maryann Edwards and City Manager Sean Nelson.

On the issue of private property
rights, there can be no question where Realtors stand.

That's the funny thing, Lenn. Doesn't seem to be any benefit from that approach. The city would make millions if they annexed and let the quarry build but realistically nothing will be built there if they just annex and downzone. It's strictly a NIMBY thing.

Well then doesn't that speak volumes about the issue? It's hard to believe that the City Council would be behind something that was so detrimental to the community they represent and love. Then what is their angle?

While I would not normally reply to an anonymous comment, yours illustrates the point I was trying to make. SDSU & SMER are capable of fighting the quarry issue on it's own merit or lack thereof. If LAFCO buys your argument that the 150 acre quarry will destroy life as we know it on the 4,400+ acres, then you win - if not you lose.

But the private property rights issue is between the buyers and sellers of that specific property and unless you are one of those parties then you are free to offer an opinion but you don't have a dog in the fight.

Finally, having just spent 2 hours with the city, whom I admire and support on most issues, they have stated their intent to annex is not to preserve the Reserve but to exert local control over the land. They have stated, and will be providing documentation to that efect, that their annexation proposal would not change the underlying zoning for the area whatsoever - in other words, no taking and downzoning, which is the legal issue. Under the current climate, it would make an acquisition by Granite and the subsequent issuance of a CUP more difficult than selling the program to the county. But that may well be subject to change in the future and the preservation of the Reserve is by no means guaranteed by this annexation.

Interesting that my gotcha graphic to post this is guano - which pretty well sums up most of the emotional diatribes I've heard both for and against this project.

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